Google Doodle Honors Marie Curie’s 144th Birthday

The drawing shows the groundbreaking scientist at work.

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Marie Curie discovered radium, is the only person (to date) to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences, and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Today, she gets her own Google Doodle.

November 7 is the Polish-born physicist and chemist’s 144th birthday, a (somewhat arbitrary) milestone that Google has honored with a soft, pastel-like drawing. It depicts Madame Curie, who also coined the term “radioactivity,” sitting at a table examining various chemicals, with the Google logo lightly inscribed in the background.

(PHOTOS: A History of Google Doodles)

Curie and her husband Pierre were foremost scientists at the turn of the 20th century in Paris, where they conducted much of their work. They shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with co-researcher Henri Becquerel.

Although Curie lived much of her adult life in Paris, she remained dedicated to her home country of Poland and opened one of two Curie Institutes there. She died in 1934 of aplastic anemia, a result of prolonged radiation exposure.

Today’s doodle is a gentle reminder of the unquantifiable accomplishments of a legendary scientist.

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